


bad with kids

by silvercistern



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Children, Established Relationship, M/M, Menstruation, but like in a pretty normal kind of way nothing weird, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 01:18:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6402517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvercistern/pseuds/silvercistern
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akaashi Keiji is good at nearly everything he sets his hand to.</p><p>Nearly everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bad with kids

**Author's Note:**

> this is a tumblr prompt from fxvixen that became too large for tumblr. that is what you get for sending me tumblr prompts. a kidfic you did not ask for. 
> 
> sure hope you like dialogue.

“Hey, hey, hey!” the girl bellowed a familiar cry, spiking the ball directly into the net where it spun against the fibers until it slid to the ground. She and the ball landed at the same time, its bounce in sync with the swirl of her ponytail.

Her teammates had made no effort to save the falling ball. They just stared unhelpfully. But... they were only eight.  

The attack error ended the set, leaving the volunteer coaches to take each team aside to talk about what they did during the practice match, and how they could improve, per the summer program’s curriculum. The children tended to listen with only vague interest, save for a few. The small spiker was one of those few.

Akaashi could tell she was crying the minute she turned away from the net.

His initial feedback for the team as a whole was on the fundamentals: using their entire body when they received, how to serve without slapping their own hand, and other skills that were, frankly, easy to talk about but only really established themselves with repeated practice. Over his own low voice Akaashi could hear Bokuto loudly pontificating to the team on the other side of the net, utter nonsense intermingled with profoundly useful commentary, as usual.

Akaashi’s crying player wasn’t listening to him at all, instead, she was staring across the net, watching Bokuto’s flailing arms. She didn’t notice when Akaashi dismissed the other children to get a drink. She just gazed with wide eyes like Bokuto was the answer to the meaning of life.

“Hikaru,” Akaashi tried to get her attention, “let’s sit down and talk about your spike. I think that if you–”

“No,” she sniffled too upset to be intentionally petulant, but the result was the same, “I want to talk to Bokuto-san. He’s the spiker and I wanna be an ace like my sister!”  

Not this again.

“I always do better when he coaches me,” she added, not an ounce of cruelty in her voice.

Intentions aside, the little girl was brutal. Akaashi was hardly a sensitive person, but her words still hurt. Possibly because it wasn’t the first time one of the players had said such a thing.

_“Bokuto-san’s so fun! I wanna be on his team!”_

_“Akaashi-san I don’t want to receive anymore. Look what Bokuto-san is doing! It’s so fun!”_

_“I hope I’m not on Akaashi-san’s side this time...”_

Bokuto would, of course, be demonstrating more than he was teaching. Holding up players so they could spike over the net, showing off his own moves all while Akaashi was trying to drill in the necessary fundamentals. Logically it seemed like Akaashi was pursuing the right path, but the children left Bokuto’s sessions talking about how much they loved volleyball, while they left Akaashi’s talking about lunch.

No matter of gentle coaching and thoughtful feedback seemed to matter. Akaashi was boring, and he was singlehandedly making children hate the sport he loved.

 

“Keijiiiii,” Bokuto sidled up to him as they packed up the equipment, “why didn’t you tell Hikaru how to fix her spike?”

“She wanted to learn from you, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi sighed, locking the storage shed before they began their walk home. “She insisted upon it.”

“Yeah, but... you’re the expert. And I thought we decided to quit it with the Bokuto-san already?? It’s a little too formal when you know what I look like when I-” 

“There might still be children here,  _Koutarou_ ,” Akaashi interrupted. “Also, I am no means an expert on spiking, as I am a setter. You should know because I was  _your_  setter...” 

Bokuto was looking at him like he was stupid, a rare enough occurrence to make Akaashi stop walking altogether and roll his eyes.

“Yes, I know. We’re a team. I’ll  _always_  be your setter,” he repeated the line he’d heard often enough.

“Not what I was gonna say, but still, wise words to remember,” Bokuto lifted one of his eyebrows with a grin. “I was  **gonna**  say that you know what a good spike looks like, you know what a bad one looks like, and you know what made them that way, cause you’re always standing. right. there. You’re an expert. Prolly more than me, when it comes down to it."

“Be that as it may, she didn’t want me to explain.” 

Bokuto took a step back, placing his hand on his chest both dramatically and one hundred percent in earnest, “Keiji, are you sulking?” 

He was not. He simply...  felt that he’d failed and he was also hurt, despite being well aware that those two feelings were on some level ridiculous. He wanted to get away from everything for awhile since he was such a fool, but he also wanted someone to say that it was not as bad as he thought and...

Akaashi was _absolutely_ sulking. 

And Bokuto was laughing at him. 

“Since you’re going to laugh, I believe I’ll walk home on my own,” Akaashi stomped off. If he was going to sulk, he might as well get his money’s worth. 

“Hey, hey, hey, noooo, beautiful, that’s not what I meant,” Bokuto chased him down, wrapping his arm around his waist when he caught up. “I mean, it’s pretty funny, but only because I sulk so much and you’re always chill and cool and perfect and I dunno I guess it’s nice to see you break down a little for once? So it’s not always me?” 

“I’m not made of stone, Koutarou,” Akaashi huffed. “In fact, you’ve seen me quite upset on multiple occasions.”

“Over huge things, yeah. But this... and I’m not saying this isn’t important, but it’s not a  _huge_  thing...” There was a long pause as Bokuto’s inquiring eyebrows moved steadily higher and higher on his face.

“I’m just... terrible with children,” Akaashi finally conceded.

Bokuto threw his head back and guffawed, which was not the hovering response that Akaashi expected. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he wheezed.

“Yes,” Akaashi deadpanned, “this is an elaborate joke. Isn’t it hilarious?” 

“Alright, c’mere,” Bokuto yanked them both over to a nearby bench and pulled Akaashi to him when they were seated. “So,” he asked seriously, trying to contain his snickers, “w-why do you think you’re bad with kids?” 

“Every child we coach openly prefers you coach them. Which is fine, obviously, as you are a very fun person and children adore you. I expected they’d like you best. What I didn’t expect,” his shoulders sank just a little, “was that I would be so dull as to crush their interest in the sport altogether.”

Bokuto's laughter stopped immediately. He took his hand and squeezed it, but, surprisingly, that was all the coddling Akaashi got.

"Well, you can’t be totally bad with kids, cause everybody says I’m a giant one.”

“Contrary to popular belief, you’re less like a child than some people. You’re just obnoxious.”

“Akaaaaashi!” Bokuto protested out of habit. 

“I didn’t say I didn’t enjoy it,” Akaashi gave a tiny sideways grin that left Bokuto blushing and sputtering. “But, children... I don’t understand how to get into their heads. If they want to be good at volleyball, they have to start at the beginning. I’m not going to lie to them. And I’m not going to waste their time. And since I don’t understand their motivations, I end up making it seem as boring as possible.”

“Well, that’s cause it is,” Bokuto said without hesitation. 

Akaashi was never a particularly expressive man, but the confused scowl he gave as he turned to look Bokuto in the eye was more a novel and less a facial expression. 

“Yeah I mean...” Bokuto shrugged a few times, “stuff that you have to practice over and over every day is boring. Man, I didn’t know how good I had it, having you and Kuroo around during training camps, till I had to do one without you guys. I love to spike, I could spike till I died, really, but when you’re not in a game or with some kinda challenge it’s boring as fuck. You guys made it fun.”

There was a long pause, the sound of cicadas ringing all around them. 

“But kids don’t know that, you know? A few of them do, but they don’t really get working hard for something that’s ten years off. They just wanna have fun.”

Akaashi sighed and leaned into Bokuto almost imperceptibly. “I suppose you have the superior method then.”

“Hell no! Look, I’ve got like, ten nieces and nephews, and all I know is if your kids end up good at something it’s luck more than anything. You can’t make someone love volleyball, or playing the guitar, or reading books, or whatever. You just show em the basics and let them decide.”

“It’s disturbing when you make this much sense, Koutarou.”

“Akaaaaaashi!” 

But Akaashi just leaned farther into the strong security of Bokuto’s arm and let the silence of the late summer afternoon envelope them.

“So... since you brought em up, whaddya think about us having... umm... some. Kids. Some kids? Someday? Yeah?”

Akaashi fell off the bench.   

 

 

“Akaashi-san, Akaashi-san!” the shrill sound of a young boy’s voice echoed across the court where Bokuto and Akaashi were bent over, locking up the equipment. “Hikaru fell down the stairs and she’s really, really hurt!” 

They both got up at the same time, but Bokuto was much, much faster. He was already vaulting the fence and down the concrete stairs before Akaashi could even grab the first aid kit. But the stairs weren't far, he could hear the worried murmuring of the other children, and the gentle hum of Bokuto’s calming voice, the one people only ever heard when they needed to. 

The one that melted Akaashi’s heart.

But in response was a histrionic, “WHERE’S AKAASHI-SAN??? I NEED HIM!! MY KNEE IS BROKEN!!!”

Akaashi reached the bottom of the stairs, crossing the small huddle of children to where Bokuto was crouching next to the girl who was more scared than injured. 

“A-a-akaashi-san, my knee is r-r-ruined. I n-n-need to go to the hospitaaaaaal.”

Kneeling down and grasping the girl’s calf so he could look at her knee, Akaashi gave it a look that lasted a little longer than entirely necessary in order to let her know he had _definitely_ looked over the wound. 

“I-i-is it broken,” she wept. 

“No,” he said evenly. “But it won’t heal properly if you aren’t calm. Do you think you can calm down for me, Hikaru?” 

“I’m a little worried she can’t,” Bokuto leaned over, his head just a little too close to resting on Akaashi’s shoulder. 

“N-no, Bokuto-san! I can! I’m really tough!” 

Akaashi worked diligently, cleaning and then wrapping the messy skinned knee in clean gauze and a bandage. He explained every step as he went, until Hikaru was asking questions instead of crying. 

“So, Hikaru,” Bokuto asked, while Akaashi was cleaning the scrapes on her hands, “Why’d you want Akaashi to help you and not me?” 

“He knows everything. You only know how to spike.” 

Akaashi spilled disinfectant all over the concrete. 

 

_Twenty-three years later_

 

“DAD NO! Just leave me alone, okay???”

Bokuto scratched his head, leaning against the locked bathroom door, utterly perplexed. “Okay, but Zuku, you can’t just throw away your uniform for no reason. And is it so wrong for me to wanna know why my baby girl is crying? You used to talk to me! What happened? Did I do something wrong?”

“It doesn’t matter, cause I’m going to **die of embarrassment** anyway!” she screeched back. He could hear a scrabbling noise and a thump, indicating his daughter had slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Her soft sobs began again, and he could hear her muffled, _“I just want Papa_ , _”_ in-between her tears.

He was right there, and his daughter didn’t want him. He was the inferior father. It was a knife to the heart.

Also, she hadn’t called Keiji that in like, six years?

His texts to the superior father had come back with the vague response of _I’m at the store and will be home shortly, calm down_. Clearly something was going down, but no one would tell him.

So he did what any sane man would do and texted Kuroo

_> >Why won’t my daughter talk to me??_

_< <She’s thirteen? How should I know? We don’t have kids. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to sit around naked while the cats and I do our unfairly higher taxes. _

He thought of calling one of the other parents he knew, but they were people like Oikawa, who made everything into a competition, or Daichi who won all those competitions without even trying, and he figured his daughter’s misery didn’t belong in that mix.  

The sound of the door opening tore him away from his phone, rushing over to Keiji who was toeing off his shoes, not even bothering to take off his coat or put on slippers.

“What’s going on??” he demanded as Keiji thrust ice cream and a bottle of painkillers at him.

“Please put those away and I’ll explain in a few minutes.”

Then Keiji was knocking at the bathroom door, it was opening for him, and the words “Zuku, it’s very unlikely that anyone noticed…,” were muffled as it closed again.

Bokuto scooped himself an enormous bowl of ice cream.

 

 

In five minutes, Keiji was back, sighing, probably at Bokuto’s ice cream theft. So he had a little belly! It wasn’t like ice cream was going to give him a second one. He was forty-five anyway, he was allowed to eat whatever he wanted. But he was probably going to get scolded anyway.

“She got her period in school and thinks everyone noticed,” Keiji said instead.

Suddenly the skirt in the garbage made a lot more sense.

Bokuto dropped his spoon on the floor. “Isn’t… it kinda early for that?”

“No, I’d say it’s right on time.”

“So why wouldn’t anyone tell me? Or is this how it is now? You’re the mom-dad and I’m the dad-dad??”

Keiji sighed, “She was mortified, Koutarou. She thought you’d make a big deal out of it. Apparently she was right. And if you call me the “mom-dad” again you can sleep in the guest room for an indefinite span of time.”  

Bokuto sank even further into the chair. “I thought it was a cool thing, though. Means she’s growing up and all. I did actually look it up, you know. When we first knew she was gonna be a girl. And last year too.”

“I’d imagine it’s less cool when you don’t realize it’s happening until you look at your chair.”

Bokuto winced, “Yeah. Guess not. But still, I mean… I can comfort, right? Why wouldn’t she let me do that?”

“Probably because this isn’t about you.”

Bokuto was trying to find a way to respond that wasn't frustrated and angry, because Keiji was probably right, when the loud sounds of his daughter's slouching footfalls made their way across the floor.

“Oh! Zuku!" he grinned (too much). "You want some ice cream? I… uh… only ate about half of it…”

But his daughter wasn’t listening, instead nuzzling up against him for an unexpected hug.

“Oh. Well... hug’s nice too,” he said softly, cradling her to his chest.

“Sorry Dad, I just… I had a really bad day,” and then she was crying again, only this time, he could do something about it.

 

 

Bokuto rolled over and bed and hummed into Keiji’s neck, “So… remember back when we were in university and working during break at that volleyball camp and you said that–”  

Keiji interrupted his gloating, “Children didn’t like me? They still don’t.”

“Were you somewhere else around dinner time when you were voted top dad?” Bokuto demanded. 

“Zuku," Keiji yawned, "is not a child anymore.”

“Well, yeah I guess… kinda… in a biological sense…”

She was definitely still a kid. Bokuto would fight anyone who tried to treat her like any sort of adult at this point. But that probably wasn’t what Keiji was getting at.

His husband turned and propped himself up on Bokuto’s chest. “Remember when she was little?”

“Is this a trick question, Keiji? Of course I remember!”

It was always some sort of a trick question, but Bokuto had fallen in love with those tricks a long time ago. 

“Who read her bedtime stories?” Keiji asked sleepily.

“…me… a lot.”

“And helped her with her bath?”

“…me…” She had been so cute, just loved to play with little floaty toys and skim them across the water making little  _nyooom_ noises. 

“And braided her hair?”

“…me… okay stop! I get it.”

Keiji ran his fingers up Bokuto's jaw and across his scalp. “Get what, my love?” he taunted gently.

“I’m a good dad.”

Dark hair rolled across his chest to snuggle into the crook of his elbow.

“We're both good dads. We’re a team,” he yawned quietly, “I’ll always be your setter. Don't ever forget.”

Bokuto never, ever did.


End file.
